Brit beauty Madeline Smith started off as a model, became an actress, starred in a few horror movies from Hammer Films, became a Bond girl and when she became a mother, more or less quit acting to look after her daughter. And good for her.
Fortunately, there’s pictorial history, first in black-and-white (mostly from her modeling days):
…and come to think of it, we can look at her in color some other time.
What an exquisite creature.
In his latest video, Harry Metcalfe takes aim at supercars — or to be more specific, their manufacturers — and their ballooning love affair with technology.
Now Harry lives in a different world from pretty much 99.99% of the rest of the world, because the market for the insanely-priced supercars is absolutely minuscule; and his point is that the market is shrinking still more.
I don’t care about any of that, and I’d bet good money that pretty much none of my Readers could give a rat’s ass about it either, for all sorts of reasons:
I’m not even going to talk about how fugly all these new super/hypercars look, because that’s also a frequent target for my rants on these pages.
Lest you couldn’t be bothered to spend half an hour in Harry’s company, let me illustrate his point about car depreciation by looking at a car we all know about: the Bentley Continental GT convertible (GTC, for the cognoscenti ). Here is the 2024 model, with its 4.0L V8:
I have to say, by the way, that it looks absolutely gorgeous: very definitely a worthy successor to the 1930s “Blower” “Speed Six” Bentley which won Le Mans several times. It’s price, however, does not look absolutely gorgeous: $340,000 with only a few adornments.
Which is bad enough. Now let’s look at its second-hand value. Here’s a 2015 GTC:
Looks more like a limo than the 2024 model, but essentially it’s the same car (same engine, same luxury interior, etc. etc.) but with… 15,000 miles on the odometer (about 1,500 miles per annum of ownership). Its price: $90,000 (!!!).
All sorts of things come to mind, most of them unprintable anywhere except perhaps on this website.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there is no justification — none — that can justify the prices of these upscale cars (and of the supercars we will not speak because Ferrari and the other thieves only make a few of them each year, thus ensuring their consistent “value proposition” — read: snob appeal for the terminally-insecure rich).
Of course, the thieves (and their sycophantic customers) will cry out that it’s all the new whizz-bang technology (“All hail Technology!!!”) that makes their cost of manufacture rocket into the stratosphere.
Unfortunately, as Metcalfe points out in his video, more and more people are looking at all that technology, what’s involved and how much money (not to mention weight) that it adds to the car, and are saying, “Eeeeehhhh I don’t think so, Luigi.”
Which, by the way, might account for this atrocity:
Looks like the More Money Than Sense crowd are taking the $340 grand they would have dropped on a new jazzed-up Bentley, and instead splurging it on a rebuilt version of Ferrari’s entry-level model of the 1970s.
At least the Dino is bereft of anything that could remotely resemble a micochip.
There is a companion piece to this post: it’ll appear next week.
I kinda missed the story of Peanut The Squirrel because, as a rule, I’m not that enthralled by stories about rodents unless there are air- and/or .22 rifles involved.
But basically, for those who are like me, the story goes that a much-loved pet squirrel with an Internet following (!) was slaughtered as a result of some dubious Gummint raid on private property somewhere in (duh) New York.
Like I said: tragic, but not of great interest to me other than providing yet another example of why a few random local Gummint employees should, as a rule, be whipped in the town square on a monthly basis by voters, just to remind them of whom they actually are supposed to serve and to stop them getting too big for their boots.
This story, however, is quite different:
America’s famously private Amish people are unreachable by phone or email and refuse to have TVs in their homes. But that didn’t stop members of the conservative Christian group turning out on polling day in a trend that appears to have helped Donald Trump win Pennsylvania.
What sparked the voting rush? Government agents had stormed a local farm early in the year in a row over unpasteurized milk that left the Amish community absolutely enraged.
Pennsylvania’s traditionally private Amish community, which some estimate numbers around 100,000, then registered to vote in ‘unprecedented numbers’. Experts have said that the movement could won Mr Trump tens of thousands of new votes in the crucial swing state.
The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture raided Amos Miller’s farm on January 4, sparking outrage among the state’s Amish population.
“That was the impetus for them to say, ‘We need to participate’,” the source said. “This is about neighbors helping neighbors.”
Trump’s winning margin in Pennsylvania was about 130,000 votes, by the way.
As much as I view the above story with satisfaction, on balance I think I still prefer the “monthly flogging” idea.
My favorite comment on the Amish story, however, was from the God-Emperor-elect himself:
“Imagine what law enforcement could accomplish if they went after members of elite pedophile rings rather than farmers selling to their neighbors??”
Don’t make me laugh, asshole:
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Thursday Beijing and Washington must find a way to “get along” in a message to US president-elect Donald Trump, state media reported.
In his first message to Trump since the former president secured a second term, Xi said “history has shown that China and the United States benefit from cooperation and suffer from confrontation”, state broadcaster CCTV said.
“A stable, healthy and sustainable China-US relationship is in the common interest of both countries and is in line with the expectations of the international community,” Xi said.
He called for Washington and Beijing to “strengthen dialogue and communication” and “properly manage differences”.
Yeah, sure. Stop trying to invade Taiwan, stop trying to colonize the entire SE Asia area, stop hassling India’s border, stop supporting Iran with arms and munitions, stop vetoing the US in the UN, and stop doing a few other things I can’t remember at the moment (but I bet Trump has a list).
Do all that, and we can talk. No?
Then fuck you, you Commie shitbrain, and buckle in because it’s going to be a rough ride… for you.
In contrast to that asshole Commie Xi (see post above), I note that my current political crush EytiePM Giorgia Meloni called DJT to congratulate him on beating off [sic] the Dark Side:
The conversation was “an opportunity to confirm the solid alliance, the strategic partnership and the deep and historic friendship that have always tied Rome and Washington,” she said.
During the phone call we expressed “our willingness to work in close coordination on all major international affairs, with the common goal of promoting stability and security, also in the framework of relations with the European Union,” she added.
The two agreed to “stay in close contact,” Meloni noted, to continue strengthening their “already excellent bilateral relations, founded on shared values and principles.”
“Shared principles” include kicking out illegal migrants and hating on the mainstream Commie media.
Just to remind everyone of whom we speak:
My favorite international political hottie wasn’t finished:
Donald Trump was not the sole recipient of Meloni’s congratulations, which she also extended to billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, with whom she has had an ongoing rapport.
“In the past few hours I have spoken with my friend Elon Musk,” Meloni wrote on social media Thursday. “I am convinced that his commitment and vision will be an important resource for the United States and Italy, in a spirit of collaboration aimed at addressing future challenges.”
Musk has been an outspoken fan of Italy’s first female prime minister, declaring that she is “even more beautiful on the inside than she is on the outside,” on the occasion of presenting her with the Global Citizen Award on behalf of the Atlantic Council, a progressive American think tank, this past September.
Meloni “has done an incredible job as prime minister of Italy,” leading the country to “record economic growth and employment,” Musk said at the time. “She is also authentic, honest, and sincere, something that cannot always be said of politicians,” Musk declared at the New York meeting.
Okay, so I’m not the only one with a crush on la nostra Giorgia.
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